EDUC 6713 Reflection

The GAME plan I chose to pursue during my current course (EDUC 6713) is focused on achieving Indicator 2c of the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS●T). The goal of this standard is to “customize and personalize learning activities to address students’ diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources.” As a result of this plan I have been able to identify the individual needs of many of my students but, as mentioned in Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer’s (2009) book Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use, I will need to discover and monitor the needs of many of my students throughout the year. By observing my students’ weekly posts on their blog, I have already been able to make the appropriate adjustments to their individual learning goals and modify my instruction for them. As we continue to make these adjustments my students will certainly benefit from a more individualized approach to learning.

As this GAME plan continues to take shape, I plan to seek out more helpful technology to make my students feel more comfortable and be successful in my class. Some things that I have already integrated are the use of advanced features in word-processing software. Instead of just giving each of my students the same document to record their answers to inquiry activities, I have been able to create customized answer spaces as well as highlight and underline key information, as necessary. The editing features of Microsoft Word have also allowed me to provide useful and easy-to-understand feedback for my students. Something I plan to do in the future with Microsoft Word is to create toggle keys to pair with sounds in order to accommodate certain students (Cennamo et al., 2009). I also plan to continue seeking out new technologies to help support and engage all of my students.

While the use of advanced features of technology will help to individualize my instruction, the use of problem-based learning (PBL) will certainly make our lessons more engaging. In Ertmer and Simons’ (2006) article titled Jumping the PBL Implementation Hurdle: Supporting the Efforts of K-12 Teachers, the goals of PBL are “1) to promote deep understanding of subject matter content while 2) simultaneously developing students’ higher-order thinking.” In the past, many of my lessons have not done this and I believe that integrating PBL will provide a platform to make these improvements. To make it happen, I plan to pursue my other GAME plan, mentioned in a previous post, and identify authentic problems in our community. To solve these problems, I will do my best to determine the content standards that we can thread into them and make learning more meaningful to my students.

During this course we have learned about some great uses of technology, including social networking and digital storytelling. My students are already familiar with these tools as we have used Schoology as a platform for accessing assignments and discussions, as well as sharing with their classmates and providing feedback to each other. At the same time, they are building their digital citizenship skills to help them be successful when social networking in their personal lives. Through online collaboration and demonstrating their understanding with digital stories and other products, my students will certainly gain a much deeper understanding of science than ever before.

Sources:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Ertmer, P., & Simons, K. (2006). Jumping the PBL implementation hurdle: Supporting the efforts of K–12 teachers. The Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 1(1), 40–54. Retrieved fromhttp://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=ijpbl.